Wood burning decision

[Lincolnshirelass]

So, the quick story is: Hubby and I are currently building a super-insulated house (using insulated concrete formwork for those who care about such things!) and have just finished the semi-basement and put our ground floor on top of it. Great excitement and dancing upon floors last week!

The kitchen is in the basement level, and my husband has left a nice big space where I want my stove to be. I've used a solid fuel Rayburn (cookmaster) and thought I'd have something similar here. With current fossil fuel prices being what they are, I'd prefer to go down the totally woodburning path now though, and have done some research. My choices seem to be:

<li>Esse Ironheart (Good-looking, boiler option will supply 14750 btus for hot water and up to 4 rads)
<li>Esse w23/w25 (Rayburn styling, 25,000 btus, general buzz is that they take a lot of setting up and Esse customer support is a bit lacking)
<li>Rayburn woodburning (I'm still waiting for the brochure on this, but the buzz seems to be that Rayburn should have stuck to multifuel)
<li>Broseley/Thermorosa (Looks lovely, but no hob covers? 19800Btu (Room), 49500Btu (Water), is listed as potentially multifuel, so don't know how it will do on just wood...)

Does anyone here have any experience of any of these? I'd also be interested to know what combinations other people are using for woodburners/boilers/cooking.

What I need the system to do is to cook (hob and oven), boil enough water for a family of four (we're very careful with hot water though - not bath bunnies!) and possibly fire a few radiators.

Suggestions, anyone?

[frozenthunderbolt]

not being familiar with any of those mentioned can i simply say dont get one that is reliant on an electricly powered fan if at all possible.
My G/F's g.ma has a stove, a pellet burner that she realised required electricity to run the blower for it only AFTER the first three day powercut . . .

Future proof you home: dont count on contiuing uninterupted electricity supplies

though i suspect i may be teaching my grandmother to suck eggs by what you have described there! very envious

[red]

i have my eye on the woodburning rayburn.. looked very nice in teh showroom....
somewhen...

[Annpan]

We have been advised to steer clear of esse, in favour of rayburn... apparently you can see that the detail is just not there


We were told this by a stove seller and fitter - a very,very nice man, and a good company, but a pinch of salt is taken with his advice - perhaps rayburn have a bigger mark-up

[red]

esse have a selling point that theirs can take bigger logs. what they dont say, but we assume, is that bigger logs, stacked lengthways gives you the best chance of the fire staying in all night.

but i like my rayburn. its just that it uses gas.

[snapdragon]

NOt sure if it's fully on the market yet but there's a stove called 'firebelly' that looks neat.
The Esse Ironheart attracts me muchly - but the lack of backup is a bit off-putting.
Aga ? I could have one if I sold the house to buy it

[dudley]

I don’t know the Esse 23/25 is it the Esse woodfired because that is what we are having?

We are in the same boat as you. Except we started building our house in 1995 and not anywhere near finished yet, we still have not put the windows in yet. But I did get the roof on last summer. LOL.
The good thing is that the build has evolved with the change in eco friendly building. It's partly that which has caused us to keep stopping and modifying things.
At the start we were having an oil boiler, basic 50 mm cavity insulation etc. Even though our building regs were passed in 95 and we do not have to change spec we have done.
We have already installed a Geo Thermal Heat Pump and masses and masses of insulation. We are going to have a heat recovery unit, rain water recovery, solar panels and a wind turbine.
We went to a self build expo back in 1999 and bought a Stanley oil fired range. It never even came out the packing case. It just sat in the corner of my workshop waiting to be fitted until last year when we realised that burning oil was not for us and sold it on Ebay. Cant wait to get the Esse Woodburning range cooker.
All the best Steve.

[Shirley]

http://www.wamslercookers.co.uk/html/ch_1100.html

[Thurston Garden]

but i like my Rayburn. its just that it uses gas.

I like my Rayburn too, 'cept it burns oil £££££

I would be looking at second hand solid fuel Rayburns - we considered buying one from Phil Green, foolishly put in a new oil burner.

Hindsight is a fantastic thing.

[witch way?]

Check out 'Bosky' before you decide. Its similar to an aga or raeburn but made of steel instead of cast iron thus its got a quicker response time. We run our heating, hot water and cooking off it. You can move the fire grate up to the hob for cooking and down to the bottom for filling for overnight use. Its also got a back up electric element in the oven (which I've never had to use yet). Its much cheaper than aga or raeburn, it doesnt look as pretty but I think is as efficient if not moreso. The only drawback we've come across is that on the rare occasions we've run out of wood and had to use coal, it tends to clinker up overnight. I've never used a cast iron stove so can't compare but I would happily recommend a Boski. w.

[George245]

Perhaps things have changed since we burnt wood on our solid fuel Rayburn but the probelems we had

1) The fire box was very small probably designed for coal as a result the wood had to be cut very small

2) we could only keep it is at night using coal as well

3) Upside was the water was boiling in hind sight perhaps to hot to be safe

4) We really cooked our financial goose when we converted it to oil

I would try and find something especially designed to burn wood not effectively an adaption of another model.

Sorry I have probably not been very helpful

[oldgustav]

For what it's worth, we reckon we have just bought our last tank of heating oil. We have an oil-fired Redfyre for cooking and an oil-fired boiler that has conveniently packed up again- making the decision to ditch it all and move to wood-burning a bit easier. We'd like to have one appliance for cooking, hot water and heating, so have have been looking at a Wamsler 1100 with great interest (we need it's BTU's for this place). We are attracted by it's price - reckoning on a two to three year pay-back, but not keen on the choice of colours (a minor point). We found out about Bosky today from our firewood man. He's had his for over ten years and was raving about it when I said we were looking to switch to a wood-burning cooker/boiler. When I rooted around for info on the Bosky I came across the UK importers, Harworth Heating, who I phoned for advice and a question - why hasn't the Bosky F25/F30 got lids for the hotplates? Seems the Italians have no use for them and Bosky sees no point in changing. Apart from this issue, there are more colours to choose from, the price is a bit higher, but you can see the fire through a glass panel and it's nearer to the size of the Redfyre, so less demolition work for me. The helpful lady at Harworth gave me a few words of warning about cooking on a wood-burner. It's not like oil or gas ranges where the heat is fairly constant, nor like a conventional cooker where you can just turn up the heat. But, hey - the idea of fiddling around with the grate adjustment lever and the smoke deviator flap to achieve the perfect Sunday roast sounds like lots of fun... Our local appliance showroom has offered us £500 px for the five year old Redfyre.

[contadino]

I've heard glowing praise about Esse from a guy that fits them (but doesn't sell them.)

We've just selected a stove from La Nordica (http://www.lanordica-extraflame.com/php ... =172&lng=0) for our kitchen. It doesn't provide hot water as the other stove already does that, but they're lovely and solid and a far more realistic cost here in Italy (i.e. €1.000.)

[witch way?]

Check out 'Bosky' before you decide. Its similar to an aga or raeburn but made of steel instead of cast iron thus its got a quicker response time. We run our heating, hot water and cooking off it. You can move the fire grate up to the hob for cooking and down to the bottom for filling for overnight use. Its also got a back up electric element in the oven (which I've never had to use yet). Its much cheaper than aga or raeburn, it doesnt look as pretty but I think is as efficient if not moreso. The only drawback we've come across is that on the rare occasions we've run out of wood and had to use coal, it tends to clinker up overnight. I've never used a cast iron stove so can't compare but I would happily recommend a Boski. w.

You must have thought I was April Fooling you

Glad you discovered it. We've had our Boski three years now. At this time of year we light it for 3-4 hours every two days and have loads of hot water. Good Luck. ww

[oldgustav]

witch way,

o
Out of interest, does your Boski/Bosky have lids? And you say it has an electric oven? Perhaps it is a model that has now been superseded? What do you cook on in the summer?